


contritionem praecedit superbia

by jemmasimmns (laurellance)



Series: reflections (a harry potter fanfiction collection) [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cry with me, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 22:06:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7658524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurellance/pseuds/jemmasimmns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is how tragedies are written: with flourishes and bangs, with the quiet sound of a quill scratching on a piece of parchment, sealing the final detail. </p><p>This is how they play out: step by step, piece by piece, mistake my mistake. </p><p>This is how tragedies fall: one mistake, one <i>selfish</i> decision that changes everything. </p><p>This is what they don't tell you: that there are long lasting consequence to actions meant to be accidental. Sometimes, almost never, they end well. Most of the time, they don't. </p><p>(Or: The Marauders and how their tragedy plays out.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	contritionem praecedit superbia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shapechanger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shapechanger/gifts).



> For the delightful shapechanger, who is a amazing writer and deserves all good things. <3

This is how tragedies are written: with flourishes and bangs, with the quiet sound of a quill scratching on a piece of parchment, sealing the final detail. 

This is how they play out: step by step, piece by piece, mistake my mistake. 

This is how tragedies fall: one mistake, one _selfish_ decision that changes everything. 

This is what they don't tell you: that there are long lasting consequence to actions meant to be accidental. Sometimes, almost never, they end well. Most of the time, they don't. 

* * *

 

There are numerous lies, spread across history. The true murderer of Cedric Diggory, the events that had occurred in 1975 for instance. 

This is the beginning of the end, and this is what dooms English Wizarding Society so throughly. 

1975 changes everything, and that is the year the Marauders truly died. 

* * *

 

Their fifth year is characterised by stress, O.W.L. exams, laughter, and tension. Anger, resentment, and faking one smile too many. 

Their fifth year is tumulus, chaotic, and it paves the road to hell without knowing it. 

(There is one more confession to make, right here, right now. 

There is a war brewing, old men plotting, and there are laughs of shock, torture, and only pain for the years to come.)

* * *

 

We begin with a letter written from the one and only Walburga Black. 

It isn't new, not really. The same poisonous rhetoric sprinkled across hundreds of letters, never ending. The same insults, the same expectations disappointed to a son who still struggles to remember what is the proper morality, a son who is sharp and cold and spontaneously the Black family's biggest disappointment  and success. 

It isn't Sirius Black's fault he has  inherited his mother's quick temper, and his father's quick and often disrespectful wit. Perhaps it was the night before the full moon, the fact that Sirius had been stupid and reckless and angry. 

Perhaps Severus Snape shouldn't have pushed Sirius, or walked the other way. But Severus Snape begins (and ends)  the Marauders, and it is only fitting that he accelerate the pace of their eventual downfall. 

But, nonetheless, the damage is done, and Severus Snape walks away with the knowledge of how to bypass the Whomping Willow on the night of the full moon. 

* * *

 

Sirius Black is proud by nature. Raised with no sense of right or wrong, he is raised with the idea he is bred for something better. 

He never apologises to anyone but James. And therein lies the next problem: he has given their enemy the key to the one thing that could potentially ruin Remus's life. 

He struts back into the dormitory to find James absentmindedly playing with a snitch, and Peter scribbling in essay. There is no hesitation as he avidly describes to James the events of what had happened, and he smiles in what could be either pride or happiness. 

James looks at Sirius in shock, and all colour fades from his face because what had Sirius done. 

He runs to the Whomping Willow at close to nine in the evening, to save Severus Snape from certain death. 

* * *

 

Peter asks Sirius if he knows the consequences of his actions, and Sirius only states that Snivellous would be dead. 

(Sirius will never apologise for it, for he is proud and stubborn, and he will never stop believing that Severus Snape is nothing more than the scum at the bottom of the barrel.)

* * *

 

The thing about morality is that it is relative. But murder is never justified, and James lets instinct overtake him as he runs to the willow. 

He vaguely hears McGonagall screaming POTTER at the top of her lungs, but there is a life at risk, and he will take the consequences of this later. 

There is a life to save, and limited time left. 

* * *

 

Remus's voice cracks, and his body quivers in absolute agony as his bones change shape and size, muscle tissue reshapes itself to fit a different form, and he loses himself to the demon that takes control every month. 

The moon continues to rise, and the wolf grows impatient waiting for him to shift.

He loses control of his body after one last bone crunching shift, and Remus Lupin is no more. 

* * *

 

Peter watches as Professor McGonagall barges into their dormitory, asking why James Potter was running towards the Whomping Willow. 

He thinks she knows the answer, as her eyes focus on the window. There is a fully circular moon rising, and she leaves, face pale like James, all colour drained. 

Sirius asks why Minnie was worried, and Peter just hopes that things turn out alright. 

* * *

 

Severus Snape is by the door that leads to the Shrieking Shack, the one way door that only opens on his side. 

He smiles smugly, having finally been able to catch Lupin transforming. 

* * *

 

The events that follow next are spontaneous and messy and they are James Potter tackling Snape just moments before Snape is able to open the one way door. 

A werewolf catches the door, and it snarls at them, teeth prodding out like tiny daggers as it tries to wrestle the door open. 

Run, James Potter yells in terror, covering Snape as he sends stunning spells to the werewolf's chest, desperately hoping he is able to buy Snape time to escape the tunnel. 

Snape is pale, and half crawls half runs to the end of the tunnel to escape the terrifying were-beast James manages to stun briefly. 

Severus escapes unscathed, while James gets scratched in the chest, bleeding heavily bit still alive. 

When McGonagall and Dumbledore find them, James bleeding in the chest from werewolf scratches and Snape covered in James's blood, it is nothing short of relief that they are both alive. 

* * *

 

James stays in the infirmity that night, and Snape is given a blanket to (improperly) treat the shock. 

Then, there is the matter of Sirius Black. 

* * *

 

There are no words needed when McGonagall walks into the dormitory again, none that really needed to said anyway. 

Peter urges Sirius to follow her, and Sirius does out of instinct, because he can tell McGonagall is angry. 

Peter can't quite explain why he and Sirius had been playing cards at 2AM in the morning, so he doesn't. He falls asleep on Sirius's bed, drooling on his muggle playing cards. 

* * *

 

There are technically meant to be four sets of parents in Dumbledore’s office: Remus’s, James’s, Sirius’s and Snape’s. 

In reality, there are five people present. Walburga Black is missing (there is no note of apology in the tone Orion Black uses, but rather a grateful one), and neither Eileen nor Tobias Snape had arrived.

McGonagall explains the situation, and Orion grimaces in a similar way as he does as he reads through all the letters he gets about Sirius- only now, it’s in the sense of what-have-you-done-now, and he hasn’t even started to think about how his she-devil of a wife would react. Hope and Lyall hold Remus protectively, glaring fierce daggers at Snape and Sirius. Fleamont and Euphemia grimace at the situation, at the severity of it. 

It should be noted that there are four neutrals in the room, three people who aren’t quite as connected to the mess as deeply as Hope and Lyall, or Orion if you squinted. They are Albus Dumbledore (who has always had a bias to Gryffindor), Minerva McGonagall (who was neutral, arguably the only person without an agenda present), and Euphemia and Fleamont Potter. 

Here, the repercussions have already begun. Both James and Remus are glaring at Sirius, who still doesn’t quite understand what he has done wrong, and Peter asleep on Sirius’s bed. Hope and Lyall are furious, and it is possible that the only reason no one had drawn wands so far was because McGonagall and Dumbledore were in the room. 

Keep this in mind, for what happens next.

* * *

 

What happens next can only be called a cover-up. Orion Black, lawyer and high ranking Government official, starts by detailing the severity of the crime- “Thirty Laws at the very least have been broken, and the minimum punishment would be expulsion and wands being snapped”- for a human. He doesn’t need to detail that if Remus were to be tried as a werewolf, because it is assumed that that would be how it would he would tried. There is no need to detail how the punishment goes, because the unspoken thoughts are all to familiar to the Lupins as it is. 

There is a catch: “-if, this was to reported as it was.” Orion Black is a Slytherin, and from the incident, he weaves a retelling. “Just another skirmish that for once, went a bit far.” Farthest from the truth, it relies on technicalities and erases parts of it altogether. There is no cautious hope in the Lupin family’s eyes, fear perhaps, cynicism. 

The retelling ends. Severus Snape accuses him of being a ‘corrupt law official,’ of him ‘twisting the truth to make the Marauders seem innocent,’ and for ‘covering his almost murder.’ The Lupins look visibly relieved, the Potters looking somewhat disgusted. Dumbledore offers them sweets, and rewards James Twenty points to Gryffindor for his bravery. 

The official part has ended, with the five leaving through the floo, and Remus and James escorted back to the infirmary. Severus is told to go back to class, and Sirius sulks back to the dormitory. 

It has still barely begun. 

* * *

(Orion Black goes back to his office, and drinks the remainder of the morning away. Walburga Black remains at the back of his mind, and he finishes his bottle of Firewhiskey. There are many thoughts that run through his mind, but none that really make a difference.

Hope and Lyall are angry, but visibly relieved. To a degree, for the fear still lingers and werewolves are stigmatised in fear and hate.

The Potters are tired, and will retire a few months after. To say this behaviour was uncommon would be a lie, but for once this kind of corruption would prove to be beneficial.

Tobias and Eileen Snape will not hear anything regarding this matter, and any letters Dumbledore sends are ignored.)

* * *

 

There’s a common saying: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Perhaps, perhaps.

What is confirmed, however, is that they are fractured, and Severus Snape snaps at anyone he comes in contact with. James follows Remus, and Peter looks after Sirius (who still doesn’t quite understand what he has done wrong- after all, wasn’t killing Snape a _good_ thing?). 

The rest of Hogwarts is confused, and they are not that concerned. Slughorn had dismissed it as a small spat followed by a hearty laugh, and Severus Snape wishes in that moment he could kill Slughorn. Evans is confused, and looking for answers reveals nothing.

* * *

 

James refuses to look at Sirius. This is a fact, in the same way Remus and James would ignore Sirius’s presence, in how they treated Sirius as if he was invisible. Sirius grumbles that he’s stuck with the leftover (Peter), and this is perhaps Sirius’s greatest strength and flaw: that he sees what he wants, and he takes and he chooses. He is proud, regal even. 

His pride will blind him, and his pride is his eventual downfall.

(It should be noted that Peter hears all the comments Sirius makes, and it’s not anger, not right now. It’s a burning desire to prove himself, but he knows he will never achieve it. Because James and Sirius and Remus are like gods, and he is dull in comparison. He is unremarkable, slightly above average, and he lets Sirius walk all over him.)

* * *

 

James follows Remus, and Remus follows James. There is something off about this arrangement, but that is something neither want to bring up, not when it brings up recently buried and ignored hurts that keep them up at night, haunting them in every way. 

Remus laughs at the jokes James tells, and the laugh is silent, subdued. James actually does his schoolwork on time, and there is something strangely comforting about this arrangement, in the stability of it.

* * *

 

By contrast, Sirius Black is a storm, wild, untamable and tragic. It’s akin to watching a train wreck- something that is destined to fail, but the allure of watching it is too great to look away from. 

Peter Pettigrew is his dutiful horseman, who follows him to hell, barely managing to reign him in. His own downfall comes later, but what is ironic is that this only secures the noose on both their necks.

Sirius is frustrated, he is angry, and he has no moral compass. No sense of right and wrong to remind him of his morality, because that is James, his brother by all but blood, who tells him. Peter is too silent, too anxious, too _quiet_. Most importantly, Peter is not James, and Sirius doesn’t care, as he criticises Peter for not being James Potter.

Because there a truth learned, from this instance: James Potter and Sirius Black are soulmates, brothers, and they are inseparable. James Potter is the only person who is able to remind Sirius of what is right, of humanity, of all things noble, because Sirius Black is a fallen star, one whose light shines so bright yet has the ability to lose it all quickly.

* * *

 

Severus Snape is angry and he is bitter and he is emotionally unstable. Mulciber and Avery find him in this time, and this secures his fate. 

* * *

Meanwhile, Lily Evans is _confused_. There are no other words to describe it, not when she sees Remus and Potter together, Black skipping classes and not caring, and Pettigrew, with increasingly darker circles around his eyes, following Black’s every move.

Sev does not help, not when she finds herself having to ignore that sinking feeling in her stomach that she’s losing him, because his eyes are colder and colder and colder and sometimes she thinks he’s already gone.

* * *

 

The thing with fifth year is that it is stressful. It is a breaking point, and it certainly breaks their year. Severus Snape only gets good marks in Potions now, and it’s more due to talent rather actual effort, because he sulks and glares at everyone, snapping at all professors. 

Lily Evans tries, still does, but things have changed. The idiots who usually were laughing and humiliating Slytherins were now actually busy, and in their absence an uneven and unsteady peace grows. She spots Potter around Remus, actually _studying_. Black and Pettigrew skip class half the time, and the two of them fall apart on the other it seems. It’s odd, because it’s always Potter and Black, Black and Potter, Remus and Peter in the background. 

The Slytherins of their year get worse, crueler. Mary McDonald gets sexually assaulted by Mulciber and Avery, who laugh in her face and call her ‘mudblood, filth that shouldn’t even be allowed to attend Hogwarts.’ They disgust her, and Sev _agrees_ with them, laughing at their crass jokes.

To think Winter Break hadn’t even come yet! She goes back to her essay, and finds a unsent letter to Tuney. Of course.

* * *

 

Lily’s patrolling the halls one day when she overhears Mulciber and Avery talking about _him_. They’re agreeing with his ideals, and discussing his recruitment policies with glee. She catches them laughing at the Massacre of Twelve Muggleborns (no murderer was found, and the Ministry had made their vague promises of promising to find the killer, even though their killer was probably the person leading the investigation.), and that is enough. 

“Curfew was a few hours ago, please return to your common rooms.” She steps out of the shadows, anger indescribable. Her tone is steely, laced with cold anger. 

Sev is with them, partially hidden by the shadows. He looks at her in shock, and Avery sneers. “None of us have to listen to you, mudblood bitch.” There are snickers from the rest of the group, laughs and jeers. A muttered comment of something she can’t quite catch, but that stirs them into a riot. 

A wrist grabs her, and all she can see is the back of a male dragging her away from the mass of laughing cruel, sadistic blood supremacists. “They’re too busy laughing, they won’t notice that you’re gone. Go back to the Gryffindor common room, take a few hundred points from the spoiled snots.” It’s a soft voice, one that she doesn’t recognise.

The face is somewhat familiar: blond hair, blue eyes, and a green and silver tie. Just as tall as her, but he didn’t seem to be in her year. “Rosier?” She had heard Black mention him in passing a few times- all she had caught was that he had a sister seven years his elder, and that his father was awful. 

Black hadn’t been pleased that he had been friends with his younger brother either. Maybe she’d ask Marlene to clarify later, Marlene knew a lot about the pureblood nonsense.

“It was them, who killed the twelve mu-muggleborns. The Death Eaters.” He leads her out the dungeons, and she can see a staircase from where they were. His skinny frame shows through the billowing of his robes, and he passes her a piece of cloth.

“What’s the cloth for?” She asks, because why would Rosier give her a cloth? Most Purebloods were confusing, damn racists they were. 

“Tell Potter to be a little bit more careful with his invisibility cloak- Snape had stole it earlier, and was using it to conceal himself. Heard him trailing you for a while, while you were on watch.” He walks away after this, blending into the shadows like a ghost. 

(She never can quite shake the encounter, even if she never tells anyone about it. The next time they meet he doesn’t stutter- maybe she had glared too fiercely the first time?)

* * *

 

Their reunion comes as a last minute accidental Snape humiliation. It’s funny, ironic even, but of course it happens that way. 

It begins with the usual: Sirius mocking Snape, Peter trailing behind to give suggestions and support. By coincidence, James and Remus had been coming out of the library, and Snape had launched his next tirade of insults on Potter instead. 

Snape probably should have regretted calling Potter “ball-less mudblood sympathising traitor” though, because the first thing James did was turn Snape inside out. 

It’s a usual occurrence, one that had been familiar to anyone who spent as much as week in Hogwarts just observing. The rivalry had been well known, and the people who had gathered around was slightly larger than usual this time. Even Lily smiles a bit at the scene, because Sev had deserved it (to a degree), and at the sad familiarity of it. 

She figured she’d scream at Potter instead, give him a little extra insults the next time he’d ask her out to Hogsmeade.

* * *

 

They go back to their previous dynamic with ease- McGonagall comes in ten minutes later, the names “POTTER! BLACK! LUPIN! PETTIGREW!” well versed on her lips already, and they have the common sense to look slightly apologetic as she invites them to her office. But Sirius grins, right hand over James’s shoulder, and even Remus smiles a little more than usual. Peter’s just happy things aren’t as tension filled. 

The weeks detention with Flitwick is light compared to their usual punishment- Flitwick had always been less harsh with them, his punishments infinitely better than writing lines with McGonagall or listening to Slughorn _talk_. 

They finish the planning of another prank in that evening, and everything goes back to normal. 

As normal as it could get anyway- Sirius’s grins and jokes were occasionally too forced now, Peter himself was a bit exhausted (more than usual), James played peacemaker more often, and Remus sometimes tried not to glare at the latest tasteless joke Sirius had made.

Still, they reconciled, and that was enough. A fragile peace of course, because the tensions never went away. Certain topics were still avoided, but it was a compromise. 

The problem with compromises is that their default design is to bridge two opposing forces, bridge two alien things, and therein lies the next problem: what happens when people stop compromising, and things start to fall apart? 

* * *

 

This is sixth year, defined by the Marauders: regrowth, laughter, and joy. They rebuild, get closer. Laugh more naturally, as the world around them descends into the chaos of a oncoming war. 

James smiles, matures. Sirius adores James like he is the sun, cares about Peter, and mends bridges with Remus. Remus is happy, because he has his brothers by his side, and Peter trails along, occasionally pitches the successful joke idea. (Peter comes with the concepts of the ones they are most known for.)

It’s their golden year, it’s their reign of glory. It’s the epitome of their legacy, the most ideal it will ever be. 

(But there is a war brewing, at a rapid pace- on the other side of the double coin is a world descending into chaos. as politicians and public alike declared their allegiances. Crime rates rise, people disappear without blinking an eye, what might be a person one day would turn out to be bones the next.

They say that from the ashes of despair and heartbreak and tragedy, The Order of the Phoenix arises.)

* * *

 

Seventh year comes around, and this is when all good things come to an end. James gets Head Boy, Lily head girl, and Remus the Prefect of that year. Peter is to ordinary to be even considered, and Sirius is considered too dangerous to be given authority.

Snape falls into the dark arts the same way Lily Evans arises from the ashes, red hair like fire and green eyes bold with emotion. If she is light, he is darkness. She laughs, lives, remembers. There is a story in her eyes, one of bravery and solitude, one that they say is engraved in the marrow of her bones: bravery, kindness, and passion. 

This is how she and James fall: all at once, the sudden moment when they realise they both have changed. They fall head first, head strong, and careless. It is sudden, it is expected, and it is beautiful. It is Laurel and Oliver, stronger together than apart. 

There is a sense of solemnity now, because they are older. Sirius is angry, reckless, uncontent. Restless even, because only he understands what the Death Eaters are capable of, because it is a magic bred and woven into his own blood, the very skill he sees in them he sees in himself. There is an anger in him, because he will not let them hurt those he considers family, and Gryffindor is family. 

Remus and Peter are anxious, for different reasons. Remus, because his future is not secure. His future is undefined, constantly changing. Peter because he knows he cannot be brave, but he must regardless. It’s all a bit noble to him, because he sees things they don’t: lack of it ends in misery, being full of it ends in misery too. 

In short, they are about to meet their demise. Because all roads lead to hell, all roads lead to the end regardless of what choices are taken. Intentions do not matter, because intentions do not speak with as much clarity as consequences do. 

(Albus Dumbledore recruits them into the Order of the Phoenix.)

* * *

 

The thing is: joining the Order is signing a person’s own death wish early- it puts a target on them, makes their name known. In a time of war, it isn’t a good thing, because alliances change over time, and people are liars.

There is also this: the end comes regardless. The future comes, and choices have to be made. Is bravery worth it? Or is it a waste, because the brave ones always end up dead? Is it better to remain on the side, and watch democracy fall as thunderous applause leads to it’s end? 

Those are questions that will always be debated, and it is the brave ones that decide to take charge. Lead the way, in the Order of the Phoenix, which paints them as political targets for everyone to see. 

(The end is coming.)

* * *

 

Peter finally understands why his animagus is a rat. It’s a clever animal, who uses it’s size and intelligence to survive. That is what he does, survive. Live another day, breathe more gasps of air from a guilt-induced nightmare. 

That is something no one says about survivors: they aren’t to be trusted, not fully. Because survival is a tricky art, one that requires a loose sense of morality and more of taking things as they are and working with that. 

Peter Pettigrew plays both angel and devil, and no one suspects him. Because he is average, he is kind, and he is there. He is the innocent, he is the constant people take for granted in a time of chaos and mayhem. 

(He loses himself in the progress, but that is not important.)

* * *

 

The Order is motley, as is the Death Eaters. The thing is: Albus Dumbledore commands through trust, and Voldemort fear. The Order fights bare-faced, maskless, the epitome of a idiot running into a conflict and hoping their skills are enough to keep them alive for one more day. The Death Eaters fight to stay alive, knowing their skills are good enough to live, but to live in fear. 

Morality is important to this conflict, in the same way ideals shape a person: they are a major influence in the joining of a decision, and shape something so much that it cannot fully be extracted from a situation. 

(The world sees it in Black and White, and the fighters are all different shades of gray.)

* * *

 

The Order is a motley group: paranoid Moody and his Scottish companion Caradoc Dearborn. Sweet shy Dorcas Meadowes, and her best friend Marlene McKinnon (who is a lesbian and hopelessly in love with Dorcas). Marlene’s family, her father and mother, and her eight older brothers. The Bones with their constant desire to seek justice and do the right thing.

Bright bookworm Emmeline Vance, dear old Professor McGonagall, the morally ambiguous Albus Dumbledore. The Marauders (Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs), and Lily Evans. Kind and Noble Alice and Frank Longbottom. Kingsley Shacklebolt, one of their many insiders in the Aurors. This is the Order of the Phoenix, the bold and brash lot that are trying to save a world that is on fire. 

(They drop dead like flies.)

* * *

 

After the fifth not so coincidental death, Dumbledore suspects there is a traitor. It is the summer of 1979, and the McKinnons are all dead. All of their bodies are cold and unmoving, not any pulse to be found. 

There is immediate suspicion that it is Sirius Black, and there is the unspoken tension that even Dumbledore suspects Sirius. The signs are all there, and even normally oblivious heads-in-the-clouds James cannot not notice the icy tension that fills the room. Remus glares, and Peter says nothing. 

(Peter has a confession to make: he is the traitor. The words never leave his lips.)

* * *

 

The thing is: everyone expects each other. Sirius himself suspects Remus, and Remus suspects Sirius is the traitor. Moody is extra paranoid to everyone, and Dumbledore fails to be impartial. James pretends all of this doesn’t exist, and Lily tries to make peace with the others. Alice and Frank are polite and kind, and Peter says he has no idea. 

Caradoc’s dead, so there’s no point asking him. Marlene and co are gone, their grave freshly buried. The Bones missing from their house three weeks ago and never to be seen again, and that wasn’t even going into how Dorcas was gone as well. 

(Kingsley raises a cup in their honour. Moody finishes his cup in one go, and James just doesn’t stop drinking.)

* * *

 

Then Sirius’s younger brother dies trying to drop out of the Death Eaters, and everyone pretends they don’t see Sirius gate-crash the funeral and that they don’t see him actually _cry_ on his father’s shoulder while the person in the front describes Regulus. 

They call it an investigative mission. 

(James and Peter comfort him later, and it takes two of them to drag him back to his flat, to prevent him from bar hopping too much. Remus is not invited, not trusted.)

* * *

 

By the next death in Sirius’s estranged family, he shows up half-drunk the next day, half mumbling stories of Orion Black and his childhood and it’s all a bit terrifying to listen to him call Bellatrix Lestrange ‘Bella’ and call the Death Eaters by their first names, and describe their family lines in startling clarity, citing dates and people and times as if he knows it like the back of his hand.

This time, it takes Peter, Kingsley, James, and Lily to convince Sirius to go home- although it wasn’t as much convincing as much as it was just telling him people would give him pitying looks if he stayed. His apparation skills are surprisingly good, despite him smelling like second hand cigars and expensive alcohol. 

(Remus is more convinced that Sirius is the traitor.)

* * *

 

James calls a dinner one day, the five of them. It’s October of 1979, and him and Lily are all smiles, despite them being involved in a war, fighting for their lives daily. Sirius and Remus glare at each other, and don’t stop. Peter attempts to make peace between the two of them, and there is a very obvious tension in the room, despite the day being meant to be happy. 

James doesn’t smell so much of Firewhiskey, instead nursing a Butterbeer. Lily smiles and bounces with energy, looking far happier than she had been for months. 

They’re pregnant with a child. 

(Sirius is named godfather on the spot, and they all try to diffuse the tension a little, because this is good news for once.)

* * *

 

Peter bounces between Remus and Sirius, and acts as a bridge. The last time the two of them had tried to kill the other, barely refraining from punching the other, or starting a duel. Either way, the two of them seemed to despise the other, glaring at the other with intense distrust. 

Peter tries to stay neutral- because Sirius has fallen back on the routine of relying on him, since James was busy taking care of a pregnant Lily. Remus was busy just trying to survive on a day to day basis, and in a way it strengthens their suspicions that the other is the traitor, because he lets them talk.

(There is a black skull on his arm and no one knows about it.)

* * *

 

The child is called Harry James Potter, and he has James’s hair and Lily’s eyes. He smiles at all of them, and James and Lily beam at him as if their child is the sun. He is a small thing, fragile, and they all adore him. 

(There is still a war going on outside, but it doesn’t matter right now.)

* * *

 

(It turns out Alice and Frank have a child as well, an infant called Neville who his grandmother Augusta says will do great things, and his grandfather holds the babe with pride and adoration in his eyes.

Alice and Frank emit happiness.)

* * *

 

Dumbledore drops by Godric’s Hollow one day, face solemn and tone grave. He tells them that they are in danger, and need to go into hiding. 

A two month old Harry starts screeching on the spot and James thinks that Harry might be right about that. 

(James stocks up on expensive Firewhiskey, and Lily goes back to see Petunia one more time.)

* * *

 

Dumbledore suggests the Fidelius- the safest charm he says, should the secret keeper be trustworthy. The implication is clear in his tone, and therein our next question pops up.

Who is trustworthy enough to be secret keeper?

* * *

 

(Sirius is out of the question, and Remus is reluctantly thrown out on the basis he could have it tortured out of him. 

Peter it is, should Peter choose to accept that responsibility.

Spoiler alert: he agrees. The end is approaching at a rapid pace.)

* * *

Peter Pettigrew is a catalyst in this conflict, for better or for worst.

* * *

 

(All Peter remembers between the gaping holes in his memory and the aching pain that traverses throughout his body is the Dark Lord asking him for the location of the Potters, and he remembers with vivid clarity groaning the words out, between the pain that seems to overwhelm him and the sense of regret. 

When he gets there, Sirius is there and it’s _too late_.

They’re dead. He killed them.)

* * *

 

Sirius watches his world fall apart, and rage, the kind his mother always possessed, sears through him, like fast moving lava pouring down a mountain range. It’s quick, it’s dangerous, and it’s rash. 

But he can’t get the image of their dead bodies out of his head, not when it had been his worst fear and Peter was the traitor, how could he have been _so stupid_?

James and Lily still stay dead (they don’t get up, no matter how much Sirius hopes on the contrary) and Harry cries, wanting mummy or daddy but he will have neither now. 

(The end has come.)

* * *

 

The duel is a farce. It is a farce in the quickest sense- there are no rules of honour at play here, just a desperate man and a angry man who were once brothers, and in a ploy of survival, the desperate man cuts of his finger, running into the sewers after a quick expulso.

Sirius just laughs, just laughs, because he has been played, been played from the very start, and he has totally and completely lost it, because Jamie, his anchor and closest brother by all but blood, is dead, and he is an idiot. 

He laughs for what he has lost.

* * *

 

(Remus hears about it the following day, and it will take him over a decade to realise that he has been wrong the entire time. 

But for now ignorance is bliss and so he tries to move on with his life.)

* * *

 

This is their end, this is the closing segment of their story. One dead man, one imprisoned man, the guilty one runs away, and one who is oblivious to it all. 

This is a heartbreaking story, because this is a story of life, loss, falling apart, rebuilding, and being torn apart by a war that was never their fault. The one who couldn’t be brave had ended them, the one who had been brave was dead. The one who persisted was imprisoned, and the one who was a victim all throughout lost everything he had in one day.

Theirs is a tragedy, because it is something that could have been prevented, and the end could have been changed if Peter had been brave enough, if Remus and Sirius had actually tried to talk their problems through, instead of letting them simmer beneath the surface, letting them grow and grow and grow until they full-out despised the other for all the wrong reasons. 

Maybe historians will look at this story, and maybe they will document it in its rise and its fall. Maybe they will portray them as actual people, and not glorify them because no one remains to tell it in it’s entirety.

But one thing is for sure: contritionem praecedit superbia et ante ruinam exaltatur spiritus, and that the accidental slip in 1975 paved the way for their road of ruin. All four of them, in their strengths and flaws alike, were all responsible for this downfall, in one way or another. The guilt changes, shifts, but their story is important. 

Their story changes history, impacts the future of the Wizarding War by ending one war, and starting the second. It effectively speeds up the time of one, and acts as the catalyst of the second.

(Never trust a survivor.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from Proverbs 16:18 from the King James Bible. Translated, it seems to be Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. ([source](http://www.biblestudytools.com/proverbs/16-18.html)  
> , NIV )
> 
> At least, that's what the latin quote in the final part of the piece is. The title is only the first half of it, pride goes before the fall. 
> 
> Other songs / inspirations: The Show Must Go On by Queen, Impossible by James Arthur, Mad World by Gary Jules. 
> 
> (and why Peter is so prominent later on the piece: because he is in essence a catalyst, and is unawarely the person who had brought the most death and destruction. He ends the first, and he starts the second, for the sake of survival.
> 
> Find on tumblr at staliahs.)


End file.
